My attractive assistant Skoolmunkee agreed to another guest appearance in order to re-adress this topic.I asked people about their favourite webcomic genres, why they like them and what makes them so cool and interesting, whether it's the genre they like to read or create in. The genres we covered chiefly in your previous genre Quackcast (number 29, http://www.drunkduck.com/quackcast/episode-29-genres-generally-speaking/), were fantasy, slice of life, post apocalypse, and spiritual, and declared that post apocalypse the winner. This time we all decide that steam/diesel/cyberpunk is best! We briefly try and tackle superheros, but nothing much comes out of it except the brown Lantern…

Some important factors about genre that you have to keep in mind as a creator:- What genre does your work best fit into? - this helps when you want to be able to describe and “sell” your comic to others.- What other comics are also in that same genre? - This helps when you want to know what comic you should advertise on or compare yourself to.- What are the key identifiers of the genre you’re creating in? - this can help you better appeal to fans of that genre or even give you new ideas on directions of where to go with your comic.- What can you use and what can you subvert?

Some writing or drawing exercises involving genre:- Take a basic story premise and adapt it (briefly) into different genres. (Try a plot generator). Think about how the story changes to fit into that genre, what tropes it taps into, whether it has to follow rules, etc. - http://www.bisg.org/what-we-do-0-136-bisac-subject-headings-list-major-subjects.php- Try taking a character from one genre and sticking them into another. (These stories tend to end up being kind of silly, but I’ve ready some pretty entertaining “wrong genre” stories.)- A single piece of work usually is made up of several genres. Take a favourite comic or story and try to identify what’s being drawn into it.

We're also starting a new radio soap. Anyone can contribute to the ongoing story here:- http://www.drunkduck.com/forum/topic/174836/We'll try and make it more interesting and funny so it can be read out weekly on the Quackcast. This is highly experimental though.